Alibaba Leads $335 Million Funding for Chinese Car Trading Site www.bloomberg.com

SouChe.com, a Chinese car trading site, raised $335 million in a funding round led by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. as it expands in auto-financing and prepares for a potential U.S. IPO.

Mongolia Strengthens Business Environment with Better Access to Credit for SMEs and Movable Collateral Registry Reforms: Doing Business www.4-traders.com

Ulaanbaatar, November 1, 2017 - Governments in 119 economies carried out 264 business reforms in the past year to create jobs, attract investment and become more competitive, says the World Bank Group's latest Doing Business2018: Reforming to Create Jobs report, which monitors the ease of doing business for small and medium enterprises around the world.

Developing countries carried out 206 reforms, accounting for 78 percent of the total reforms, with Sub-Saharan Africa implementing 83 reforms and South Asia implementing a record 20 reforms. A large number of reforms centered on improving access to credit and registering a new business, with 38 reforms each, as well as facilitating cross border trade, with 33 reforms.

Business reforms continued at speed in East Asia and Pacific, with regional economies adopting 45 reforms during the past year. The region is home totwo of the world's top 10 ranked economies, Singapore and Hong Kong SAR, China, and two of this year's top 10 improvers, Brunei Darussalam (for a second consecutive year) and Thailand.

Mongolia implemented substantive reforms to boost SME financing through Secured Transactions Reform project. Access to finance is a challenge faced by many Mongolian SMEs, which struggle to obtain bank loans as they do not own land or buildings that banks generally seek as collateral.

To address this issue, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and the Ministry of Justice have partnered with the Bank of Mongolia, Mongolia Bankers' Association, and other stakeholders since 2013 to help reform the country's secured transactions system to unlock affordable financing for SMEs. As part of the reform, a web-based pledge-notice registry was launched in February 2017, enabling creditors to search for existing interests on movable assets that they intend to use as collateral and to file security interest on their approved collaterals. In addition, the IFC-supported Law on Tangible and Intangible Movable Property Pledge went into effect on March 1, 2017. The new law, along with the registry, allows SMEs to offer moveable assets such as accounts receivable, inventory, livestock, equipment, and future income as collateral to banks - a major move to improve access to finance for SMEs. The system also reduces the need for paper documents and notifies creation of pledge-rights to existing and prospective lenders.

To date, around 90,000 pledge-notices have been registered, 38 percent of which is equipment, 24 percent is livestock, 5.4 percent is account receivables, and 2.0 percent is vehicles. Women account for 24 percent of the total borrowers.

'We are very encouraged to see the strong early results from this project' said Tuyen D. Nguyen, IFC Resident Representative in Mongolia. 'Mobilizing movable collateral to boost access to finance, especially for MSMEs, can play a significant role in Mongolia's sustainable economic recovery and job creation.'

In its annual ease of doing business rankings, New Zealand, Singapore and Denmark retained their first, second and third spots, respectively, followed by Republic of Korea; Hong Kong SAR, China; United States; United Kingdom; Norway; Georgia; and Sweden.

This year's top 10 improvers, based on reforms undertaken, are Brunei Darussalam; Thailand; Malawi; Kosovo; India; Uzbekistan; Zambia; Nigeria; Djibouti; and El Salvador. For the first time, the group of top 10 improvers includes economies of all income levels and sizes, with half being top improvers for the first time - El Salvador, India, Malawi, Nigeria, and Thailand.

The report also monitors hurdles faced specifically by women in the areas of Starting a Business, Registering Property and Enforcing Contracts. This year's report records a welcome reform by the Democratic Republic of Congo, which eliminated the requirement for women to obtain their husband's permission to register a business. However, 36 economies continue to place obstacles for women entrepreneurs, with 22 economies imposing additional steps for married women to start a business and 14 limiting women's ability to own, use and transfer property.

This year's report includes two case studies on transparency, which analyze data from business registries and land administrations and find that economies with more transparent and accessible information have lower levels of corruption and bribery. A third case study on private sector participation in formulating construction regulation finds that such rules exhibited higher costs and a propensity for conflicts of interest. A fourth case study highlights three successful insolvency reforms in France, Slovenia and Thailand, and lessons that are transferable to other economies.

October 31, 2017 trading report www.mse.mn

On October 31, 2017, 144,688 shares of 26 firms listed as Tier I, II, and III were traded. 14 firms’ shares increased in price, 9 decreased and 3 remained unchanged. Mongol Post JSC /MNP/ was the top performer, increasing 4.73 percent, whereas Moninjbar JSC /MIB/ was the worst performer, decreasing 13.10 percent.

Canada supports environment ministry with skills upgrade and high technology www.montsame.mn

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The 'Mongolia: Enhancing Resource Management through Institutional Transformation (MERIT)' project, funded by Global Affairs Canada, will hand over GPS and drone equipment to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism on November 2, 2017.

Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Mongolia enters into force www.eeas.europa.eu

On 1 November, the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) between the European Union and its Member States and Mongolia will enter into force.

Mongolian economy is rapidly recovering: IMF www.news.xinhuanet.com

ULAN BATOR, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Mongolian economy is rapidly recovering, said an International Monetary Fund team after evaluating an economic bail-out program here.

The IMF predicts Mongolian GDP growth to reach 3.3 percent this year and 4.2 percent next year. The country's Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program has achieved its goal, said the IMF.
In the near future, the IMF will focus on supporting the banking sector and improving the implementation of Mongolia's monetary policies.
Geoff Gottlieb, leader of the IMF staff team in Mongolia, said the Mongolian economy is recovering faster than they expected, which was largely due to the growth of coal exports as well as the restoration of services. But next year the coal industry will be at risk.
The quantitative indicators that determine current monetary policies were positive as a result of strict control over the expenditures of the state budget, which has been increased.
Last year, Mongolia's budget deficit reached 17 percent, while it decreased by 7.5 percent in 2017. Net international reserves improved, and the authorities turned over sovereign bonds with maturity in 2017 and 2018 at attractive interest rates, eliminating the key risk to the external position.
Long-term structural reforms will continue to contribute to economic growth.
The authorities have moved ahead with their ambitious structural reform agenda, which will help to sustain growth over the medium term, promote diversification and competitiveness and mitigate the boom-bust cycle.
Currently, the banking system is being restored and strengthened: the results of a comprehensive asset quality review are expected in mid-December; important legal reforms are being developed to strengthen the financial system; and improvements of the regulatory and supervisory framework are under way.
The Mongolian authorities and the IMF team have reached staff-level agreements on the completion of the first and second reviews under the EFF arrangement, which is subject to the approval of the IMF Executive Board.
As part of the full implementation of this program, Mongolia will receive 440 million U.S. dollars from the IMF and 5.5 billion U.S. dollars from donor countries, including Japan and the Republic of Korea.
The IMF staff team, led by Gottlieb, were in Mongolia from Oct. 18 to 30 to sum up the results of the first phase of its EFF program and decide whether to continue it.

One Metal Will Be Transformed by the Electric Car Boom www.bloomberg.com

Glencore Plc and Trafigura Group Pte are often at loggerheads, but one thing they agree on: the nickel market will be transformed by the rise of electric cars.

Nickel sulphate, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, will see demand increase 50 percent to 3 million metric tons by 2030, Saad Rahim, chief economist at Trafigura, said in an interview. While other battery metals like cobalt and lithium have more than doubled since the start of last year, nickel prices have been subdued because of large inventories.

"When you look structurally, we should start to get bullish now,” Rahim said. “Are you going to be able to meet that demand when the time comes, given underinvestment in the supply side?”

His view echoes the outlook from Glencore, which told analysts recently that nickel production would need to increase 1.2 million tons by 2030, equal to more than half of current global output, to keep up with demand from the battery industry. Prices are currently more than double what it costs Glencore to mine the metal.

It’s a surprising mood change for a market with a disastrous reputation. Nickel was long a thorn for Glencore, which was saddled with unprofitable operations following its takeover of Xstrata. It sold an Australian nickel mine, which Xstrata bought in 2007 for $2.4 billion, for just $19 million in 2015.

“The nickel industry’s been a bit of a dog since about 2007,” Oliver Ramsbottom, a partner at McKinsey & Co. in Tokyo, said by phone.

The battery industry could revive the fortunes of miners more than a decade after nickel collapsed from a peak of $51,600 a ton in 2007, when Indonesia and the Philippines started to flood the market with low-grade supply. Nickel currently trades at $11,870, up 18 percent for the year.

Future batteries will likely use more nickel and less cobalt, Rahim said. Cobalt prices have surged and the biggest source of supply is the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Still, some analysts are skeptical that the bullish scenarios will play out. Electric cars are still a niche industry and nickel oversupply remains a threat, with current stockpiles four times bigger than since the start of 2012.

Indonesia has authorized its largest producer to export more nickel ore. The Philippines has also discussed ending a ban on open-pit mining, raising concerns that supply will spike.

“For years, the market has completely dismissed the idea that something positive could happen in nickel,” Ingrid Sternby, senior research analyst at Blenheim Capital Management LLP, said in an interview in London. “With the recent announcements about Indonesia and the Philippines, it’s easy to see why the market is still scary enough for people not to want to be involved.”

About half of global nickel production is in the form of ferronickel or nickel pig iron, which is nickel alloyed with iron, making it suitable for stainless steel. Battery makers, instead, use nickel sulphate, produced by dissolving pure nickel metal in sulphuric acid.

One hope is that the pricing of nickel pig iron and the high-grade nickel sulphate will diverge in the coming years, improving the fortunes of miners that can produce battery-quality material.

The global nickel market is heading for a deficit once above-ground stockpiles of battery-grade metal are consumed, according to Wood Mackenzie. The question for miners is how quickly the premium for top-quality nickel will emerge.

“You can see the tightness ahead in the nickel market, but my concern is that we’re going to see a lot of value destroyed along the way,” said Colin Hamilton, managing director for commodities research at BMO Capital Markets Ltd. “If the miners really believe in the EV growth story, the thing to do would be to keep the nickel in the ground until the deficit arrives.”

Still, politicians and automakers are increasingly counting on a future of electric cars, attracting traders such as Trafigura.

“Will we see a real breakout in next 12 months? That’s hard to see, but beyond that, structurally this looks to be going up,” Rahim said.

Canada oil, gas drilling to pick up in 2018: industry body www.reuters.com

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canadian oil and gas drilling activity will climb 5 percent in 2018 as a gradual uptick in crude prices gives rise to cautious optimism among producers, an industry body forecast on Tuesday.

Russia starts building Bushehr 2 nuclear power plant in Iran www.rt.com

Russia's state atomic energy corporation Rosatom announced on Tuesday construction of the Bushehr 2 nuclear power plant (NPP) in Iran has started. The project was agreed between Moscow and Tehran three years ago.
"I am sure this major Russia-Iran investment project will strengthen cooperation and ties between our countries,” said Rosatom’s Director General Aleksey Likhachev at the ground breaking ceremony.

Crude price recovery lifts PetroChina www.chinadaily.com.cn

The mainland's largest oil and gas producer China National Petroleum Corp, or PetroChina, reported a 290 percent rise in third-quarter net profit as the company reaped the rewards of a strong rebound in crude prices and deleveraging.

With the other two mainland oil majors－CNOOC and Sinopec－also reporting higher third-quarter numbers, industry analysts expected the strong rebound to continue in the fourth quarter of the year also.

PetroChina's net profit rose 290 percent from a year ago to 4.69 billion yuan ($707 million) as the company cut debt and interest expenses.

Revenue for the period rose 17 percent from a year ago to 481.8 billion yuan, the Beijing-headquartered company said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

With the winter heating season approaching in the northern parts of China, analysts believe PetroChina's earnings could continue rising in the fourth quarter with wholesale natural gas demand set to go up from mid-November.

Li Li, research director for the energy sector at ICIS China, a consultancy focused on the energy industry, said Chinese oil giants have benefited massively from the rebound in international oil prices during the first nine months of this year.

The profit rebound, based on last year's low base, which was also the company's worst first-half profit since its listing in 2000, will continue and the oil and gas industry will also gradually improve with better risk resistance capacity, she said.

"PetroChina's revenue and profitability are expected to continue improving in the fourth quarter, thanks to higher crude prices and generally better cost controls in the oil and gas sector," said Li.

Crude production fell to 660 million barrels in the January to September period this year, down 5 percent year-on-year.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, the world's biggest refiner, also known as Sinopec, also disclosed its third-quarter report late Monday, saying its profit advanced by 13 percent as earnings from refining operations offset upstream and impairment losses during the period, while its net income increased to 11.5 billion yuan.

Third-quarter revenue of CNOOC Ltd, the listed arm of China National Offshore Oil Co, also rose because of higher oil and natural gas prices, with revenue from oil and gas sales in the third quarter rising 16.9 percent to about 35.94 billion yuan, the company said.

PetroChina and Sinopec also vowed to complete important internal corporate reforms by November, as part of the plan to help clear the institutional barriers for further reform of State-owned enterprises and improve operational efficiency.

According to the State Council, all central SOEs, except financial and cultural ones, will be registered as limited liability companies or joint-equity corporations in accordance with the Company Law by the end of 2017. It is also an attempt to accelerate the establishment of an effective and balanced corporate governance structure, based on the legal person status, as well as a flexible and efficient marketized management mechanism.